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Posts Tagged ‘Obama’

OBAMA: And 100 percent, John, of your ads — 100 percent of them have been negative.

MCCAIN: It’s not true.

OBAMA: It absolutely is true.

A quick search yielded this ad, which does not mention Obama, and focuses on McCain’s strengths. CNN and MarketWatch (part of the Wall Street Journal digital network) have also called the claim by Biden and by Obama false.

Sen. John McCain did go “100% negative” for at least one week during his current campaign for the presidency, a study finds….the Wisconsin Advertising Project says the GOP candidate aired only negative ads for the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4…Throughout the entire campaign from June 4 to Oct. 4, 47% of McCain’s ads have been negative, 26% were positive and 27% were a mix. For Obama, the mix has been 35% negative, 39% positive and 25% mixed.

It may be true for 1 week, but without that qualification to say 100% of McCain’s ads have been negative is a lie.

but I think it is that it is also important to recognize I work with Tom Coburn, the most conservative, one of the most conservative Republicans who John already mentioned to set up what we call a Google for government saying we’ll list every dollar of federal spending to make sure that the taxpayer can take a look and see who, in fact, is promoting some of these spending projects that John’s been railing about.

And I’ll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it. Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty - half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would’ve watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would’ve been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves. So I know Senator McCain is talking about a “casino culture” on Wall Street - but the fact is, he’s the one who wants to gamble with your life savings.

Mr. McCain called for 20 percent of the Social Security payroll tax to be placed in individual retirement accounts in which workers would be able to choose from an approved list of investment options. He said they would also be guaranteed that they would never get less in benefits than if they had stayed in the current Social Security system. To pay for the transition to such accounts, Mr. McCain would devote $729 billion of the non-Social Security surplus over 10 years to Social Security.

That plan, which would have privatized 20% of Social Security payroll-based contributions, would not have affected senior citizens currently receiving benefits at all. There doesn’t seem to be any maximum age, so it’s possibly Floridians could have enrolled in 2001 and entered retirement this years, having 7 years of partially privatized Social Security. But even for those people, McCain’s offered a guarantee that they would never receive less benefits, so if the market tanked they’d be ensured the baseline funds.

The second possible plan, Bush’s 2005 proposal which McCain supported, doesn’t provide for workers older than 54 to participate in privatization. Though it offered no guarantees of benefits, no one enrolled in that plan would be eligible for social security yet. Thus no one affected in that scenario would “rely” on social security. (That plan did not privatize current retiree’s holdings either.)

Obama lied when he told senior citizens their Social Security fund would have evaporated under McCain’s plan. That’s simply not the case in either privatization plan McCain’s supported.

John McCain doesn’t understand. John McCain voted to cut education funding. Against accountability standards. He even proposed abolishing the Department of Education. And John McCain’s economic plan gives $200 billion more to special interests while taking money away from public schools.

Of the issues pointed out, some are misleading, and some are outright lies.

1) Proposal to abolish the Department of Education. While many conservatives have campaigned on abolishing what they consider an unconstitutional Department (including Ronald Reagan, Ron Paul and many others), McCain had done no such thing. He has never “proposed” it in the legislative sense. A search on the Library of Congress reveals no McCain-proposed legislation abolishing the Department. As far as we can tell, he has never initiated or specifically called for it, and it has certainly never been a mantle of his campaign. When asked about it, he responded favorably, but never actively proposed it as the ad states. Via factcheck.org:

Frank Sesno: Senator McCain, would you favor doing away with the Department of Housing and Urban Development or the Department of Energy?

Sen. John McCain: I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education, I would favor doing away with it as well.

He never “proposed”, this is a lie.

2) Cutting funding Factcheck outlines the facts: for 4 of the 5 sources sited, McCain proposes a freeze on all discretionary increases for a year. Same amounts, no cuts. Perhaps if they were expecting an increase and they didn’t get it, it could be seen as a cut, but that’s stretching it. They are getting the same amount of money, no less, as “cutting funding” implies. On the fifth, once in ‘95 he did vote to cut funding for schools with an across the board budget cut. Clinton stopped it, and this was part of the famous “gridlock” era in the 90’s. Preventing increases are not cuts, but this one vote was a literal cut, so this would not be considered a lie.

3) Giving $200 billion to special interests McCain wants to lower taxes on all corporations. The total projected loss of tax revenue is $730 billion over 10 years according to the Tax Poicy Center’s analysis. The $200b number itself remains a mystery to us. FactCheck cites that the $200b is over the first 5 years, and applies to all incorporated entities - including small businesses. We’re having a hard time verifying it. If factcheck is correct, to say that the entire $200 billion is for special interests when it’s actually for all corporations would be a lie. Since the figure is in dispute, we will have to keep this as a really fishy perspective on the numbers.